New DMR Repeater in Mid Cities, Texas

Soon, hopefully within the next week, one of the NETARC UHF repeaters will be converted to a new DMR repeater in Mid Cities, for the DFW area. This repeater is a Motorola XPR repeater that has been running in Analog mode for some time on 443.875MHz. I don’t have lots of details, but it was recently decided to convert this repeater to digital and use it as DMR.

This will be a welcome addition to the two current DMR repeaters in the area, one in Denton and one in Dallas. (There is a 3rd DMR repeater in Dallas on 900MHz, but in this post I am talking about 440 repeaters). There has also been talk about a UHF DMR repeater going up in the Fort Worth area, and in the McKinney area. If/When this happens, it should provide fantastic DMR coverage over the DFW area, with many hams being able to key a DMR repeater from most places on an HT.

So now is the time to get your DMR radio. One of the more popular radios has been the Connect Systems CS700, mostly due to its price and availability. I blogged about that radio a while back. You can buy them directly from the vendor at their website for $180. They currently only have the CS700 UHF HT version, but are in process of working on a VHF version, mobile version, and a hybrid DMR/DSTAR radio that they are calling the CS7000. I’ll probably pickup a CS7000 because I have never had a DSTAR radio, but I am more looking forward to the mobile UHF radio that has been promised for this year.

Well……I can see your theory there, but… also realize that within a 50-mile radius of Grapevine (I searched from Grapevine because that is where I am) there are about 60 2-meter machines, and around 110 440 machines. (per Repeaterbook) So the numbers are almost doubled. Given that fact, I don’t know if there is actually more activity on 2M in this area.

In Mid Cities, there is really only 1 active 2M machine, which is the Hurst machine on 147.100. However, Bedford, Euless, NRH, Flower Mound all have 440 machines. Some are less active than others. Southlake has 1 2M and 3 440 machines by themselves.

A 2M DMR machine would be a nice addition, but I’ve read there are only a small number of those Nationwide. There are many more UHF DMR repeaters than VHF.

Hi Greg, thanks for commenting.
The DMR repeater has moved to 440.500 and is still on the air. It was on the air for a while on 443.875, but they got a new repeater pair for it, and moved it over last week. It is up on the air, but still isn’t hooked into the DMR-MARC network. It should be added to the network, hopefully some time this week.
Jason

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Who Am I?

My name is Jason, callsign kc5hwb, and I have been a Ham Operator in North Texas since 1994.
I created this blog to share my experiences with ham radio. There are many aspects of this hobby that are new and exciting. I'll share my experiences here about them.
Find me on the following DFW Area Repeaters:
147.1-pl110.9
442.175+ pl110.9
441.900+ pl110.9
DMR TEXAS STATEWIDE and DFW LOCAL
224.800- pl110.9